February 18, 2013

Anonymous Reportedly Hacked Burger King Twitter Feed

by editor

redOrbit Staff & Wire Reports - Your Universe Online

The official Twitter account of fast-food restaurant Burger King was apparently hacked Monday afternoon and altered to make it appear like it belonged to rival McDonald's, whom the person or persons behind the attack claimed had acquired the Florida-based chain best known for the Whopper sandwich.

According to Charles Arthur of The Guardian, the hackers were “apparently“¦ affiliated with the Anonymous collective, who quickly took it over and rebranded it with rival McDonald's logo and name, and began using it to tweet McDonald's special offers.”

Prior to the account being suspended at approximately 2:00pm (EST), the profile section of the Burger King Twitter page had been changed to read, “Burger King® USA official Twitter account. Just got sold to McDonalds because the whopper flopped =[ FREDOM IS FAILURESM. mcdonalds.com.”

Likewise, at 12:01pm (EST), the hackers used the account to Tweet, “We just got sold to McDonalds! Looks for McDonalds in a hood near you.” Forty-six minutes later, the Anonymous account @YourAnonNews tweeted, “We´re guessing the @BurgerKing social media team is having a bad day“¦”

More than a dozen tweets were sent out from the account prior to its suspension, reported Rob Manker of the Chicago Tribune. Many of those were used to promote the music of “controversial Chicago rapper Chief Keef,” he added. One of the posts included a link to one of the rapper´s videos, and several contained vulgar language, Manker wrote.

At 1:43pm (EST), McDonald´s addressed the issue through their official Twitter account, stating, “We empathize with our @BurgerKing counterparts. Rest assured, we had nothing to do with the hacking.”

Salvador Rodriguez of the Los Angeles Times attempted to contact Burger King officials to discuss the incident, but they could not be reached for comment.

The restaurant´s Facebook and Google+ accounts were not attacked by the hackers, who Rodriguez said “claim to be a part of the LulzSec group.” He added, “Based on a tweet retweeted by the account, it appears the group may have waited for Presidents Day to pull off the hack in order to catch the company on a day its employees may be not working.”

According to the Associated Press, the company plans to post a public apology, especially in regards to the language, online at its Facebook account later on today. They are also hoping to have their Twitter account up and running again shortly.